


Time Travel 101

by Wynja2007



Category: Star Wars
Genre: Fancy Dress, Gen, Office Parties are Dangerous, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynja2007/pseuds/Wynja2007
Summary: A sort-of Star Wars StoryRoped in to help organise a themed office party, Maria and Lovell are a little disconcerted by the arrival of a gatecrasher...





	Time Travel 101

After three years working in the Special Collections Department of the University Library, nothing fazes me any more. It's a place that attracts the unusual. Ufologists researching aliens in the Fairy Archive, dubious Eastern Bloc persons trying to leave with stolen photos under their coats… I’ve seen and heard it all. In fact, my line manager Trudy’s reports all start with, ‘Maria is a very calm person to work with…’ 

Having said that, when the monthly staff meeting got on to the Christmas Party, I was utterly gobsmacked when our deputy head of department (Professor Jerry Robinson, intelligent – allegedly –) suggested Star Wars as the specific theme.

Silence. Well, you do expect some hush in a library, but this was the profound, utter pin-drop-crash silence of the certainty that someone around the table had lost their marbles. 

Meanwhile Jerry focussed on me – my stifled giggle being the last sound heard.

‘Do you have an opinion, Maria?’

Well, of course I did. I just wasn’t prepared to vocalise it.

‘It will be nice to have a specific theme for the party,’ I managed. ‘And everyone here’s bound to be familiar with Star Wars…’

Trudy gave the lie to this by announcing she’d always liked Sulu herself, although Dr Spock was pretty good, too, and she did like that K9…

Many of us shuddered, and our HoD Professor Jacobus – Jack – Hall called us to attention. 

‘Well, there’s been interest from the Lucas people about a visit to look at our sci-fi archives…’ He looked as if he could hardly believe what he was saying. ‘I think it might be a gesture of good faith if we were to get into the spirit of the thing by using Professor Robinson’s idea…’

‘Thank you, Professor Hall,’ Jerry said, smug. ‘I’ll need a Task Force to look into place settings and décor – and sourcing costumes, too…’

‘Maria, you write science fiction,’ Professor Jack said smoothly. ‘Why don’t you and Lovell work on this together?’

Lovell was the other library assistant – everyone else besides us were doctors or professors - we were just the grunts. It was pretty obvious we’d been picked because our time was least valuable. 

‘Wouldn’t it be more… ah… challenging if everyone had to create their own costumes?’ Lovell suggested, casting the shadow of a wink at me. ‘We could award a prize to the best outfit. Just a thought.’

‘That’s a great idea,’ I said quickly; it’d make the party so much easier to organise. ‘You’ll all be able to choose your own characters that way, too.’

‘Right,’ Professor Hall said. ‘We’ll discuss progress closer to the date.’

*

Granted a hasty five minutes’ discussion time at the December meeting, the party two weeks away, Lovell gave the presentation, explaining the catering arrangements and the time allotted to the party and who, from the now-extended-to-the-rest-of-the-library guest list, wished to attend.

‘…it happens that the Lucas people are coming in then to look at the archives, so I invited them to attend,’ he said. ‘They were flattered to be asked. Someone called George will be coming to the party.’

‘George?’ Jerry Robinson piped up. ‘As in Lucas, George? The man himself?’

Lovell shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t think so. They sounded really casual about it.’

‘Costumes,’ I said, taking up the slack. ‘As you all know, I’ve been sending reminders that you’ll need to get on with these. And who’s being who? We don’t want dozens of R2D2s…’

*

It was like herding cats, trying to get it sorted. 

But eventually, in spite of Professors Hall and Robinson, we were there, the day arrived, it was 4.55 pm, the last of the readers had left and we were ready to party.

I glanced around the Brotherton Room. Its floor-to-ceiling glass fronted bookcases gleamed all polished oak, dark, muted browns echoed by the multi-tonal hues of the parquet flooring, the rich panelling between bookcases continuing the colour. And in the middle of the elegant, refined space, we’d set up the table, all blue and silver and, hanging off the upper storey balcony down over the table, cardboard planets and tinfoil spaceships made an homage to the art of Star Wars.

Time to get changed.

After much thought, I’d decided to go as Shmi, mother of Anakin Skywalker – mostly because it wasn’t obvious, and also because I’ve got a lot of brown and grey (and scruffy) items of clothing in my wardrobe. And dark hair. What I don’t have is the haunted look, although after the stress of organising this party, I was getting close.  
I was already wearing a grey top, and now added a drab green cardigan and wrapped around my home-made-from-a-piece-of-grey-blanket skirt.

‘You ready?’ Lovell tapped on my door. He was rocking the Han Solo look and I briefly wished I’d gone as the Millenium Falcon…

‘Just about. Shall we?’

‘I know. Let’s go up to the balcony for a minute? Get a proper look at them?’

There was a staircase which led up through the stacks and brought us out on the balcony level of the Brotherton Room so we could look down on the other party goers.

‘Impressive,’ Lovell said, deadpan as, unobserved, we drank in the sight.

I snorted a laugh.

There were Storm Troopers and Jedii and a couple of Wookies from the main library, but of our own staff, Jack was probably the most normally-dressed, wearing what looked like a monk’s robe and a fake beard; Obi Wan Kenobi, I presumed. 

Jerry was wearing a gold lame Lycra jumpsuit with a gold-coloured gimp mask; he had a gold platter stuck to his chest, gold gloves and overshoes. He looked remarkably… gold… His movements were staccato, over-emphasised. C3P0 incarnate, looking even more outrageously camp than in the movies. At that point, my manager came into view, and I lost interest in all the gold.

‘Oh, my… What has Trudy done to her hair…?’

‘It’s a look, all right,’ Lovell agreed.

Trudy had gone for the full Princess Leia, white clothes, white boots, plastic gun… and two Chelsea buns somehow fixed to the sides of her head to mimic the classic hairstyle.

‘Well, if the buffet runs out, she’ll be okay,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Want to mingle?’

We descended the curved stairs which led directly to the ground floor of the Brotherton Room. I eased my way through the crowd, butterflying from conversation to conversation.

‘…so I looked on the internet,’ I overheard Trudy saying, ‘and thought about being Paddy Amygdala, but Leia was easier…’

The person listening shuddered. I moved on: Jack and Jerry were talking technical.

‘…No, the thing with time travel is that you cannot travel into the future; it’s Time Travel 101,’ Jack said, waving his Obi Wan lightsabre – actually, a stick with paint on the end. ‘You can’t go to somewhen that hasn’t happened yet…’

‘But we can’t go back in time, either…’ Jerry put in. ‘You can’t travel to a time where the time machine doesn’t exist…’

‘Well, we can’t… but only because we haven’t invented a time machine yet… besides, it would be irresponsible to travel in time, what with the Grandfather Paradox…’

I drifted past. I already knew about the Grandfather Paradox and it had several flaws, not least being the Milkman Variant, which goes like this…

You go back in time and accidentally kill your grandfather, who then never meets your grandmother, your mother is never born, so you are never born. The Milkman Variant suggests that, actually, your grandpa wasn’t actually the grandfather you killed, but the milkman, and so it doesn’t matter that your grandmother isn’t able to marry him; she still gives birth to your mother etc. 

I refilled my glass with orange juice and mingled on through the crowd.

*

Gradually the party relaxed, fractured into several groups. In one corner, the True Believers were talking about their campaign to have Jedihood granted religious status, while in another, eyeing them warily, the fans were talking continuity errors and whether Lucas should just stop messing around with the originals, already.

A sudden, unladylike scream from Trudy drew everyone’s attention.

‘A mouse! A mouse! Over there, near the incunabula!’

We all stared and were just in time to see a quick scuttle as the creature whisked away.

Jack took charge. ‘Lovell, call Estate Services, report it to them. Maria, you know where the Incident Book is kept? Please note this down immediately.’

I nodded and left the room, Lovell behind me, muttering that it would have kept until the morning. The incident book was upstairs in one of the offices and I sat down to fill in the two-pages.

A noise outside startled me. 

‘Who’s there?’ I called, standing in the doorway. Along the dim corridor, I could see someone standing – a rather handsome someone dressed as Anakin Skywalker in the days before he went postal amongst the kiddies. I was about to tell the party guest he was lost when he spoke.

‘Mother?’ he said.

Oh. Role play. Still, at least it suggested my costume was accurate.

‘Ani?’ I replied, playing along. 

Suddenly I found myself swamped in a hug; it was rather unexpected and I was about to protest when I realised my roleplayer son was quite distressed and really clinging.

‘I thought you were dead…’ he was saying.

‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s have a look at you.’

He let go as if I scalded him.

‘You’re not she! Why are you pretending to be my mother?’

‘It’s a fancy-dress party,’ I explained carefully, stepping back.

‘A… what is this? Tell me at once or I’ll…’

I raised my eyebrow and tapped my foot, as if he really were my son.

‘Maria? You okay?’ Lovell appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Anakin Skywalker. Apparently.’

‘I didn’t think we’d got one of those tonight…’ Lovell said, bemused. ‘He’s not with the Lucas people, is he?’

I glanced sideways at Anakin. ‘I think he means it,’ I said.

‘How’d he… sorry, how did you get in here?’ Lovell asked, showing no fear in the face of the worst tyrant in the galaxy. 

‘I was outnumbered… my strength failing… I had to find refuge… using the force, I tuned my mind to where I could sense the belief of my supporters and I followed their thoughts… and found myself here.’

Ah.

‘Oh,’ we said. Well, what else was there? 

Lovell appraised him.

‘How old are you?’

‘What?’

‘I’m just wondering whereabouts in the canon you’re up to…’

I took a seat on the top step while Lovell went through Anakin Skywalker’s early years with him, joining in to corroborate where I knew enough of the story.

‘You’re saying I do what…? But that’s outrageous! I’m not like that…’

‘Well, when you go back, you can do things differently,’ I said comfortingly. ‘Make sure they don’t happen.’

‘Ahem…Grandfather Paradox?’ Lovell muttered.

‘Don’t be pessimistic,’ I said. ‘Milkman Variant.’

‘But it’s fiction anyway. This chap doesn’t exist, he's made up, in a made up story!'

'He looks pretty real to me.'

We exchanged glances. All of us felt a little bit dazed, a little bit bewildered. 

Anakin was first to stir. He nodded to us, decision made.

‘Yes. I will leave now. Perhaps I will return in time to save my mother.’ He pushed up his sleeve and pressed buttons on something. ‘My interface device! It is not functioning!’

‘Time travel 101,’ Lovell said. ‘You can’t go to a time that hasn’t happened yet.’

‘But it has happened! I came from then!’ Anakin protested.

‘Yes… but we didn’t,’ I pointed out. ‘I wonder…’

I wandered through to look down on the guests below. If time travel theories were right, time would try to heal itself, to make sense of the future which now wouldn’t happen; for Lovell and Anakin and me, at the eye of the paradox, it might take a while before we felt the effects, but for the rest of the guests, Star Wars would never happen, had never happened and was never going to have happened.

Which was going to make for a fun evening as they realised what they looked like...

C3P0 was staring at a Wookie; Princess Leia was gazing at her reflection in the glass of the bookcases, fingering her Chelsea buns. The True Believers were looking suspiciously at each other.

I rejoined the party, followed by Anakin and Lovell.

‘So… why have you come as an Oscar statuette, Jerry?’

‘Nice monk’s outfit, Jack. What’s with the stick?’

‘…I’m Heidi! Oh, my goodness, I’m Heidi…’

A group of smart Americans who'd just arrived were looking around, bewildered. I headed across, hoping time wouldn't repair itself for a few more seconds; there was one chance...

‘Mr Lucas?’ I said to a vaguely familiar face. ‘I’d like you to meet Anakin. Anakin Skywalker.’

‘Hey, great name! Hmm… I have this little idea for a space story, but I'm stuck on one or two bits of the backstory...’ but I think I can use that... Can see it now… ‘Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away…’ I think I can use that… Yes, that might work...'

Around us, the room relaxed and time unhealed and rehealed itself. There was, it's true, a slight incident when Ani took exception to Jack as Obi-Wan, but I dragged him away and explained again, as best I could, about fancy-dress and not to be a disappointment to his mother, and he calmed down again. Ani left with the Lucas people, deep in conversation about his early life, and Lovell and I relaxed. Altogether it was considered a very successful party... 

But next year, I'm going to take the week of the party off, just in case Jack and Jerry decide to re-enact Jurassic Park.

**Author's Note:**

> Authors note: This story was written as an exercise and had to include an animal, a specific theme, and a colour. It had to include the characters Professor Jerry Robinson (intelligent), Anakin Skywalker (handsome) and Professor Jack Hall (intelligent leader).
> 
> Where Trudy references Paddy Amygdala she is, of course, referring to Padme Amadala.
> 
> With thanks to Terry Moran for in-depth discussion of the potentialities of time travel although the Milkman Variant was not actually discussed.


End file.
